Tobias Thomas mixes Please Please Please

The longtime Kompakt DJ unveils the third and last instalment of his acclaimed mix CD trilogy.

Longtime Kompakt DJ Tobias Thomas finally unveils the third and last instalment of his acclaimed mix CD trilogy. ‘Please Please Please’ arrives at the end of April.

Tobias Thomas' ‘Für Dich’ [1999] was the first CD mix released on Kompakt, and the idea behind it was influential: Instead of putting together a dozen recent banging hits, Thomas chose to follow a more personal approach, approaching the mix not as a simulation of a night in a club but as something of a mix tape, allowing room for surprising turns or atmospheric moments in which nothing "happens" in the traditional sense. Variations on the method have followed on Kompakt (DJ Koze, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer), but perhaps the most acclaimed example is volume two in Thomas’ mix series, ‘Smallville’ from 2003, which fused relatively unknown club tracks into a seamless whole designed to be listened to on repeat.

Volume three ‘Please Please Please’ promises to slow down things compared to its predecessors, but it was created with records and turntables in the same space as the others, Studio 672 in Cologne where Michael Mayer, Superpitcher and Thomas spun for the legendary ‘Total Confusion’ parties between 1998 - 2006.

Kompakt describe Thomas’ choices as a reaction not only to the cult of the new in DJs mixes, but also “the tendency to use tracks only as tiny little elements in a huge digital edit and never to play them as long as the producer intended them to be.” Seventy one tracks in Albeton this is not.

Artists on the mix include familiar names such as Ricardo Villalobos, Johannes Heil and International Pony, but look closer and there’s hints of pop music too (The Wedding Present, Fleetwood Mac and The Smiths). Not the usual suspects on a DJ mix, but not unusual choices for Thomas, given his feel for pop, as well as his background as a music journalist.

Cologne residents can catch the reborn Total Confusion party at its new home at Bogen 2 this Friday, May 30th. Lineup includes Gui Boratto (live), Tobias Thomas and Michael Mayer. Check RA events for details.

‘Please Please Please’ mixed by Tobias Thomas will be released on Kompakt on April 30th, 2007.

14 comments

extremely boring stuff. it was written that this mix has a very personal touch - what seems to be a modern version in expressing to not find a clear musical structure providing sense. it was said you would like to listen to this mix ten years later - i doubt this. each mix done in the past that is still worth listening offers something exceptionell. here you first find the imitation of depth, followed by good tracks played in a bad groove with mediocre sound and ending in one of the worst the smiths cover versions i've ever heared. really ask myself how a dj can describe himself as being a big fan of the smiths and then taking such a crap for ending his mix. useless, overrated. that's what i call a fake mix. btw: "different colors", bunching a lot of influences and these types of characteristics in most cases are only describing the lack of ability of developing a musical structure. it's easier to switch than to stick on your musical theme in trying to go further out of it.

As Kompakt releases become an ever increasing percentage of the 100 plus CDs that get added to my collection every year anything new always gets a spin and fair consideration. With Total 6, Total 7, Immer 2, Kaito, Pop Ambient 7, Gui Boratto, and The Field of more recent measuring sticks, it's hard to argue their qualitative statements in the musical minefields. I admit to a bit of 'what the......' on initial listening. Not being familiar with his previous two mix CDs I have no reference point other than his contributions to additional Kompakt mass gatherings. Since I list big time toward ambient waves and waters the opening 4 song mantra caught me shoe-gazing at my own stumbling feet before the beat meters stood me upright, shanking jive, cutting oriental Turkish rug.

My reflective thoughts run 'bienvenidos a'la casa de muy weirdos' concluding Mr. Thomas as a DJ is not only a mystery, he is doubly a super-hero in the big house of his own mind. I find this territory somewhat uncharted, a bit askew, but never formulaic. It's like he had a definitive start point plotted, then operated strictly by feel and intuition later in the mix. Thinking all these different origins might sound great throw with purpose but not target, he proceeds without abandon and restriction. Once in, I grow more accustomed to his surroundings and realize that his is a big house with room for plenty. Who cares if it leans towards Piza? This is fodder of a different breed, and different is usually better. Primal, beatific, esoteric, and animal friendly. I bet five on the fifth horse in the fifth race, please.